<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div>Here's some literary criticism regarding my little essay above:<br><br></div>Today's reading is finding relatively less of a direct Athena-Apollo<br>
tension as that's not her Python he killed. She had a twisted <br></div>"son" (he'd have to be, given her virginity -- at least the story is<br>twisted) who looked like serpent when Pandora opened the box,<br>
</div>but that was a different monster. Or was it? As you read <br>version after version you realize they're all just making it up<br></div>(duh) so the temptation is to just join in.<br><br></div>The thing is: Monty Python is a serious bridge in British<br>
comedy becoming more edgy. We think about the BBC TV<br>as innocuous but forget about 'Life of Brian', which George <br>Harrison (of The Beatles fame) had to risk his personal fortune<br>on (he mortgaged his favorite property, his castle), to see <br>
produced, after the original big name distributor got scared.<br></div>But then it's not just "nasty snake stuff" after that, meaning<br>the Python connotations are also rich and interesting, and<br>I will be taking a peek at those my upcoming workshop, with <br>
lots of people signed up already (Chicago DjangoCon). <br><br>So for Python the language, the PR prospects continue to look <br></div>promising, even as a smaller minority keeps the Monty alive (and <br>well I might add). Peter Seller's was part of the same network <br>
of British comics. I hold them in high regard (The Beatles too, <br>though I cannot be regarded as a "serious fan"-- my scores on <br>'Beatle mania' quizzes 'd be too low).<br></div></div><br></div>
What we need is for humanities teachers to be less shy <br></div>about this stuff, all this AJAX and JSON. Greek mythology <br>is an orphaned topic right now, begging for relevance, <br>whereas the anthropologists tell us we need shared stories <br>
to cohere our cultures. Do want to disconnect with the <br>ancestors completely? <br><br>Disney remade Hercules and otherwise flirted with parts <br>of Classical Western Culture in Fantasia and so on. Now <br>in the movies we're doing DC and Marvel Comic superheros <br>
on the big screen. But with all our new-found computer <br>power ("special effects") why not do the Greek stuff again? <br><br>But lets give it more mnemonic value by marrying it with <br>the world of Tron, i.e. the landscape of "cyperspace" (or <br>
Cyberia). This invisible landscape has a need to be more<br>concrete in peoples' thinking, as it comprises our global <br>infrastructure, and is in constant need of upgrading and <br>maintenance. <br><br>There's already software called Python, and Athena. Lets <br>
reignite the Greek stage and teach our new Logic, still <br>awesomely geometric. The stage is the screen, the browser, <br>and the cartoons explain virtual machines, what they are and <br>where they fit. Didactic cartoons needn't be boring.<br>
</div></div></div></div></div><br></div>Interestingly, our mnemonics go even deeper than that. <br>Asynchronous programming, ala Twisted, traces to older <br>modules: asyncore and Medusa. The idea of a hydra-headed <br>
beast, a multi-processor or multi-tasker, need not be made <br>to frighten. "Think of Medusa as gorgeous" say the cultural<br>therapist mythographers. They're not so shy anymore.<br></div></div>They've found a way to leverage their training in the <br>
humanities. They know Athena helped Perseus cope with <br>Medusa, as a kind of interpreter of females to males and <br>vice versa (she's good at that), and they now know Python <br>is cutting new edges in the form of Tulip, a next take on <br>
generative / asynchronous programming (asynch i/o <br>rebooted)<br></div><div><div><br><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div class="gmail_extra"><a href="http://docs.python.org/2/library/asyncore.html">http://docs.python.org/2/library/asyncore.html</a> <br>
<a href="http://www.nightmare.com/medusa/">http://www.nightmare.com/medusa/</a><br><a href="http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3156/">http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3156/</a><br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">So were Apollo and Athena best of friends? Those who took <br>
</div><div class="gmail_extra">liberal arts courses about Nietzsche or listened to a lot of <br>Joseph Campbell probably remember the Apollo-Dionysus <br>feud. The whole soap goes back to Delphi by Mt. Parnassus,<br></div>
<div class="gmail_extra">where the Python once lived. <br><br>There's a STEM (geology / chemistry) angle, in that they now<br>think a kind of "laughing gas" maybe *did* steam up from beneath<br>those tripods, where the women oracles sat. For a long period<br>
scholars said "no way" but at the moment the mountainous <br>vapors school holds sway (says Google today).<br><br>A lot of scholars say those hallucinogenic gases were the rotting <br>Python smell and that "python" means "rot" in Greek. Others say<br>
there's a confusion of identities here and the Python actually lives<br>on. So much depends on who is doing the telling.<br><br>In any case, this was the institution Apollo took over, and in recent <br>tellings I could swear it was Athena's own staff he was displacing. <br>
But today those links were not found. The Google god (or portal <br>to a great engine) has other things on its mind today. Python's <br>mommy was Gaia. You should learn a new vocabulary word <br></div><div class="gmail_extra">
while you're at it: "Chthonic" as in "the Python of the Pythians<br>was chthonic" (not that easy to say).<br><br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonic">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonic</a><br>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">The practice of oracles making pronouncements at Delphi <br></div><div class="gmail_extra">was officially squelched by a Byzantine dictator sometime in <br>
the first 500 years after Jesus. He was a Christian himself and <br>the whole Greek spiel was just not getting the same traction. You<br>could say he closed it, but in today's language it probably more<br></div><div class="gmail_extra">
just "ran out of money". Like Coney Island someday. The <br>carnival was over. No cults last forever. Plus they say the <br>laughing gas dried up. The whole infrastructure had become<br>untenable and was allowed to crumble. Today, it's all tourist <br>
sites and museums, with skiing on Mt. Parnassus. Today we<br>have PyLadies.<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Kirby<br><br><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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